Sync to transmission grid and first coal in the boiler at Dry Fork Station

(Joel Dingman): It's a good day to make electricity at Dry Fork Station.

(Tom Stalcup): There it is. We just synced.

The Dry Fork Station has been synced to the transmission grid. That means electricity is flowing from the plant for the very first time.

Crews have dedicated a lot of time and energy preparing for major milestones like this one. It's all part of getting the plant ready for commercial operation.

(Tom Stalcup): Friday morning we rolled the turbine for the first time. We had several valve tests we had to run; we had to test the emergency lube oil system. We had to test the emergency trip system. We did all of that over Friday and Saturday and towards the end of the day on Saturday, about half way through I guess, we started working on the AVR which is the auto voltage regulator.

The auto voltage regulator is what controls the voltage on the generator, which is how the plant actually syncs to the grid.

(Tom): Then we did a dummy synchronization. What we did is we left the disconnects, the line side disconnects open on the generator breaker and then we first manually synced, by closing the generator breakers, but it wasn't connected to the transmission system so it had no power output and then once we proved that then we proved the auto-synchronization.

(Tom): "Let's roll the turbine."

For the actual sync, crews roll the turbine and increase its rotations per minute to 3,600, increasing about 360 rpms every minute. Then with the click of a mouse, electricity is released to the transmission grid.

Even Mother Nature has given approval for the sync. It's a chilly 32 degree day in May with heavy snow. On a call with CEO Ron Harper and the board, Clyde Bush, Basin Electric vice president of coal-based resources, shares news of the milestone.

(Clyde Bush): They say a lot of beautiful babies are born in a snow storm and that's kind of what happened this morning here. We were able to tie the unit on initially at about 0900 and I believe we generated something a little north of 30 megawatt hours.

A few days after the first sync, another milestone took place.

(Sound): Feeder's on. Coal's goin' in.

(Joel Dingman): There it is. You can see the coal.

(Tom Stalcup): Whoopeee!

(Joel Dingman): ... we were able to successfully burn coal in the furnace for the first time.

Up until this point, propane has been the fuel used in the boiler.

(Joel Dingman): Propane is the ignition fuel that we use before we go onto coal, our primary fuel. So, we would put in, in a normal operation, we'd start a fire like we see here on propane. Then we'd work a pulverizer up, start it and start burning coal with this flame stabilized with the propane.

Once coal is introduced in the boiler, the propane is pulled out and the coal is self sustaining. Crews now begin a rigorous testing schedule and incrementally increase the megawatt load.

(Joel): We go to 25 percent through the night tonight or a minimum of 12 hours, we'll come off line, do turbine over-speeds, go back on line, go back up to 25 percent, stabilize and then intentionally trip the unit again to do a test to see how quickly our main stop valves and governing valves react to a trip.

Crews then put the unit back online and begin to ramp up to 50 percent load, then 75 percent load, and eventually to 89 percent load.

(Joel): In all that time we'll be testing.

The plant will not reach 100 percent load until all the different systems have been tested for maximum efficiency.

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